Return to the State Project (Dahlaniastan)

In the news broadcast of the Emirati "Al-Ghad" satellite channel this morning - which is contributed to by Mohammad Dahlan and represents the opinion of the reformist trend within Fatah - the presenter mentioned that Mohammad Dahlan will present a comprehensive plan for managing Gaza under his leadership during a meeting with the factions held in Cairo.

This news, as well as the faction meeting in general, despite the hopes pinned on it by the people of the sector to put an end to their suffering, confirms the reality of the final separation - geographically, politically, and institutionally - between the Gaza Strip and the rest of the territories of the presumed Palestinian state, particularly with the exclusion of Fatah movement, the organization, and the authority from it, limiting negotiations between the present factions, Miladinov, and the intermediaries to the situation in the Gaza Strip only.

The public mention of Dahlan's name brings to mind the period before Hamas took control of the Strip; when "Abu Fadi" was the strongman in Gaza, commanding militias and security agencies, foremost of which was the Preventive Security Service. His convoy when moving inside or outside the Strip was no less than that of the head of state, and at that time a French journalist described the Gaza Strip as a state (Dahlaniastan).
Indeed, there were suspicions about Dahlan's desire - perhaps in agreement with Washington and Israel - to turn the Strip into an independent state. These suspicions were bolstered after Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the Strip in the fall of 2005, where Dahlan was the coordinator of the withdrawal process (or the redeployment of the occupying army), and Washington allocated millions of dollars to implement this plan. The Strip could have turned into a state governed by Dahlan, were it not for Hamas’s preemption, which conducted a military coup against the authority and seized control of the Strip in June 2007.

Qatar was the sponsor of this transformation with a mandate from Washington, which adopted during the Obama and Condoleezza Rice era the "New Middle East" plan, based on the idea of escalating political Islamist groups and enabling them to govern to create "constructive chaos"; Qatar and Al Jazeera were the most important tools for Washington to implement this plan.

So did Hamas's project fail based on which it antagonized the Palestine Liberation Organization, weakened it, began the division, and then later strengthened it? Is it now ready to hand Dahlan the reins of power in the Strip in exchange for ensuring the security of its elements and integrating them into the new authority? Especially since Dahlan enjoys acceptance from the U.S., Israel, Egypt, and other Arab countries, he would also be welcomed in the Strip as an alternative to Hamas's rule, the occupation, and Trump's and Kushner's plan to settle Gaza and turn it into an investment project for them as a replacement for the displacement scheme.